Blog Archive

“They really suffer in silence,” said San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón at a recent program at The Commonwealth Club. He was referring to victims of the most recent crime wave to hit San Francisco: blessing scams. Especially targeting older, Asian, Cantonese-speaking women, the scam came to the police and district attorney’s attention approximately a year and a half ago.

“Suspects typically work in groups of two to four people,” said Gordon Shyy, public information officer for the San Francisco Police Department. “They prey on older victims, because they are more susceptible to the story they tell.”

The story Shyy is referring to is the scam: One suspect approaches a potential victim on a crowded street or in a marketplace and strikes up a conversation in Cantonese or another Chinese dialect. They steer the conversation toward family and eventually reveal that they sense a negative energy or impending death in the victim’s family. The suspect will then suggest a blessing to avoid potential catastrophe. At this point, a second person pretends to overhear the conversation and suggests a third person who can perform the blessing ritual that will rid the victim’s family of negative presences. These two seeming strangers suggest going to the third person who can perform the blessing. The third person asks the victim to bring all of her valuables to be blessed. The victim comes back with a bag full of cash and jewelry and the person performs a ritual, during which they switch the victim’s bag full of valuables with a bag full of worthless items. At the end of the blessing, the victim is told to go home and not open the bag for a certain period of time. Of course, when the victim finally opens the bag, hoping to have rid her family of an evil presence, she finds her cash and jewelry gone.

The DA’s office estimates that there are at least 50 victims and they have lost a total of $1.5 million. However, a concrete number of victims is hard to pin down simply because the crime is underreported. “A lot of people probably didn’t report the scam because they were too ashamed,” said Stephanie Ong-Stillman, a spokesperson for the San Francisco District Attorney’s office.

Albert Samaha, a staff writer for SF Weekly who has reported extensively on the topic, agrees. He said that in addition to victims suffering physical reactions like loss of appetite or inability to sleep, “afterwards, consistently across the board, there is deep shame.” He further noted that it is imperative to understand the context in which these scams are taking place, within immigrant communities by people who speak the language. This scam is no different from any other scam: “the only differences are the specifics. All cons are the same — they prey on beliefs and desperation.”

Samaha noted that historically in the United States, immigrant communities have found success by joining together and building up collectively. Scammers in these cases use that to their advantage, by starting conversations in Cantonese. “[There is an] implicit trust in the scam artist because of the nature of immigrant communities,” Samaha said. That’s precisely the message the DA has touted in his public education campaign, emphasizing the fact that victims are not foolish to have been scammed in this manner. “This is a real crime. This is a real victim. And no, she did not have it coming to her,” said DA Gascón. He further added, “They’re just getting taken advantage of based on the vulnerability that they have, but, by the way, guess what? We are all vulnerable in our own different ways.”

The DA’s office and SFPD believe that these crimes may be connected. Ong-Stillman noted that blessing scams are not only occurring nationwide, but around the world. “We suspect that [the criminals] are all part of a larger ring — they all came from a similar region in China and they are moving around a lot.” However, neither the DA nor the police have enough evidence to prove a connection. Yet separately, the DA has obtained convictions in two out of the three blessing scam cases being tried; the third trial has yet to begin. As the first jurisdiction in the nation to have successfully prosecuted perpetrators of blessing scams, the DA is now advising other jurisdictions on prosecution strategies.

To address the scams locally, the police department and district attorney’s office collaborated with Hong Kong police to create a robust public education campaign. Hong Kong had seen a rise in blessing scams in the early 2000s and used a public education campaign effectively to counteract the scams. The San Francisco campaign consisted of public meetings, ads on Muni, and a multigenerational approach using social media, brochures, and giveaways, such as reusable tote bags with warnings about the blessing scam. “We imagine that if a swindler sees a woman with that bag, maybe they won’t target her,” said Ong-Stillman. At the very least, the bags along with other efforts will spread the word about these crimes.

“It seems to have worked,” said Shyy of the SFPD, and added that no incidents of blessing scams have been reported since February 2013. “But we are very vigilant because we don’t want people to become complacent and the suspects to come back.” Samaha agrees. “The crime only works if the victims don’t know about it,” he said. And in that train of thought, the DA’s office will continue educating the public. “Currently the best thing to do is prevention and education,” added Ong-Stillman.

Prevention is especially key, because in many of these cases, victims barely recover their losses, if at all. The DA estimated a $123,000 loss in cash and jewelry among five victims in the first case it prosecuted; however, only $17,000 was recovered, which will be split among the victims. The only case in which the entire amount was recovered was the second case, where an undercover operation led to the suspects being apprehended as they were leaving with the victim’s savings—a total of $47,000. To complicate matters, the DA is also wary of people inflating their reported losses, or falsely claiming a loss, Samaha noted. In many cases, victims cannot identify the perpetrators, in which case restitution becomes impossible.

Prevention via education then becomes the most effective tool for combating such a scam. And the DA is quick to note that the educational campaign is not restricted to the affected communities. “Part of what we try to do is educate, not only dealing with the communities that are being impacted, but educating the communities at large that we’re all in this together.”

The awkward truth is that not much happened on July 4, 1776. History is almost always messier than we remember, and both the popular play, "1776," and John Trumbull's iconic painting, "The Declaration of Independence," reinforce several popular misconceptions.

The Trumbull portrait shows five men approaching a desk. The most recognizable of the figures are John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. The man behind the desk is John Hancock. Most viewers think the painting depicts the signing of the declaration on July 4. But the date is really June 28, when the committee responsible for drafting the declaration presents its draft to the president of the Continental Congress.

The culminating scene in the musical "1776" has the main characters, again Adams, Jefferson and Franklin, stepping forward on July 4 to sign the document that Jefferson drafted. This is dramatically correct but historically incorrect. No one signed the declaration on that date. Most delegates signed the parchment copy that now resides under bullet-proof glass in the National Archives on Aug. 2, but stray delegates and reluctant revolutionaries were adding their signatures as late as October.

A letter from John Adams to his beloved Abigail on July 3 further complicates the confusion: "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. ... It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one end of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

Adams got everything right, including the obligatory fireworks, but he got the date wrong because he thought the vote on independence itself more significant than the vote on the declaration two days later.

He had a point, because the vote on the Virginia resolution "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states" on July 2 was the decisive moment politically. But history has chosen to remember the approval of the declaration on July 4. All the delegates did on that day was send it to the printer.

Fifty years later, on July 4, 1826, Adams and Jefferson conspired to sanction the problematic anniversary. In a scene that no novelist could have plausibly imagined, they died a few hours apart, symbolically signifying their consent. Jefferson's last coherent words were, "Is it the Fourth?"

The debate over dates has been lost in the mists of time. What remains for us to contemplate during the barbecues and exploding skyrockets are Jefferson's words, which have levitated out of their historical context in 1776 to become the magic words of American history. Here they are.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

In 1848, the women at the Seneca Falls Convention thought these words sanctioned sexual equality. In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln believed they necessitated the end of slavery. In 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. argued that they demanded the end of racial segregation.

None of the delegates to the Continental Congress in July of 1776 foresaw the meaning of Jefferson's words for subsequent generations, including Jefferson himself. But there they are - the seminal statement of the American creed. The question for us to ponder is what those words mean to us. My sense is that gay men and women are about to be folded into our revolutionary legacy.

Your chance to meet the author! Joseph Ellis will be speaking at The Commonwealth Club on Thursday, July 11, 2013. More information here. Ellis is a Pulitzer Prize winning author, whose most recent book is titled, "Founding Brothers, American Sphinx and Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence."

As we approach the celebration of the 237th year since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, it seems timely to look at how far the United States has come. With recent news about the National Security Administration’s intelligence programs and the general shift toward anti-terrorism activity since 9/11, how has the United States positioned itself for its citizens and as a global player? Brian Michael Jenkins, Director of the Mineta Transportation Institute’s Transportation Safety and Security Center and author of When Armies Divide: The Security of Nuclear Arsenals During Revolts, Coups, and Civil Wars, spoke at The Commonwealth Club on June 24 about America’s safety. Here’s what he had to say:

On post-9/11 programs and policies:

“We’re not driven by what terrorists have done. We are driven by our apprehension of what they might do. And that’s a difference. And that’s an effect of 9/11. It had an insidious effect. It fundamentally altered our perceptions of plausibility. That is, far-fetched scenarios that were dismissed as the stuff of Hollywood scripts the day before 9/11, the day after became operative assumptions. We worry not only about another possible 9/11 scale attack, but about terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological, even nuclear weapons. And it’s still a concern. I’m not saying it’s not a legitimate one. But that is what drives us. And that — that apprehension, that fear — is really the push behind a continuing accumulation of programs.”

Jenkins believes that the concern is not simply one policy or one program:

“It’s not PRISM or this other particular program that causes me concern. The real thing that is a cause of concern is the accumulation of secret programs, the accumulation of extraordinary measures, the assertions validated by Congress of extraordinary executive authority. It is the cumulative effect of those that causes the greatest concern. Not a new concern: In the 1970s, looking ahead at this phenomenon of terrorism, I simply observed that because of technological developments, because of political developments, power — power defined crudely as the capacity to kill, to destroy, to disrupt, to create alarm, to oblige us to divert vast resources to security — that was coming into the hands of smaller and smaller groups, gangs whose grievances, real or imaginary, it was not going to always be possible to satisfy. And how we were going to deal with that within the context of a democracy, and remain a democracy, I thought was one of the major challenges we faced and still face. This is tough; there are not easy answers here.”

On the consequences of our current programs and policies:

“It would be incorrect to say that we have savaged civil liberties since 9/11. But we have laid the foundations for a security state, for a very oppressive situation in all these measures. Now, it’s not extraordinary historically during times of war, during times of national power, for power to shift to the executive, for a nation to adopt emergency measures. But at the end of the emergency, then the other branches of government and the people call back [the] extraordinary authority and things are restored. But we face an open-ended contest. … there’s no point at which we can breathe a sigh of relief and say, ‘OK, emergency over, take it back.’ So what we’re putting in place now becomes a permanent part of the landscape, the baseline for yet further measures to be piled on top of that. We are dancing on the edge of tyranny and a major terrorist event, that sufficiently frightens the population, or a less benign government, has in place the institutions, the machinery, the legislation to move us into an entirely new domain. … I’m not making an argument against any particular program; I’m saying really what we do need, however, is a serious, national discussion, about where we are going with this.”

On fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Jenkins says that while he does not condone Snowden’s actions, they have opened the door for a national debate about legislation being passed that gives the executive branch extraordinary authority:

“Mr. Snowden’s fate is not the issue facing this country. The issue facing this country is: This is an opportunity to explore these broader issues, not just one set of NSA programs, but I mean, things that have remarkably not been debated because of a society that is either frightened or apathetic.

“And we’ve had a problem here. I mean, look, we have had, in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, legislation reinforcing a claim by the executive, that the President as Commander-in-Chief, has unlimited authority to detain, without habeas corpus, in military custody, terrorist suspects — suspects, not bad guys that we know of, but suspects. That was passed in legislation [and] prompted very little public debate.

“Part of the problem is, like legislation, it was buried in the National Defense Authorization Act, which is about 800 pages and in the middle of it we find these troublesome paragraphs. That merited debate. I think we have to have a discussion across the board…we really need to put pressure on our elected representatives. … We’re not asking if you are opposed to this program. What we’re really asking for is a broad, seriously informed debate on where we think we’re going in this society.”

On how the United States can retain its values and protect itself:

“It is my own belief, by the way, that the ultimate security of this country against terrorism is not going to be found in government computer files; it’s not going to be in concrete bollards that we put in front of buildings; it’s not going to be in walls we build along our frontier. It is rather going to be in the courage of our citizens, the commitment of our citizens to the values for which this country stands and which have taken us through far darker moments in our history than we confront today.”

As we approach the celebration of the 237th year since the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, it seems timely to look at how far the United States has come. With recent news about the National Security Administration’s intelligence programs and the general shift toward anti-terrorism activity since 9/11, how has the United States positioned itself for its citizens and as a global player? Brian Michael Jenkins, Director of the Mineta Transportation Institute’s Transportation Safety and Security Center and author of When Armies Divide: The Security of Nuclear Arsenals During Revolts, Coups, and Civil Wars, spoke at The Commonwealth Club on June 24 about America’s safety. Here’s what he had to say:

On post-9/11 programs and policies:

“We’re not driven by what terrorists have done. We are driven by our apprehension of what they might do. And that’s a difference. And that’s an effect of 9/11. It had an insidious effect. It fundamentally altered our perceptions of plausibility. That is, far-fetched scenarios that were dismissed as the stuff of Hollywood scripts the day before 9/11, the day after became operative assumptions. We worry not only about another possible 9/11 scale attack, but about terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological, even nuclear weapons. And it’s still a concern. I’m not saying it’s not a legitimate one. But that is what drives us. And that — that apprehension, that fear — is really the push behind a continuing accumulation of programs.”

Jenkins believes that the concern is not simply one policy or one program:

“It’s not PRISM or this other particular program that causes me concern. The real thing that is a cause of concern is the accumulation of secret programs, the accumulation of extraordinary measures, the assertions validated by Congress of extraordinary executive authority. It is the cumulative effect of those that causes the greatest concern. Not a new concern: In the 1970s, looking ahead at this phenomenon of terrorism, I simply observed that because of technological developments, because of political developments, power — power defined crudely as the capacity to kill, to destroy, to disrupt, to create alarm, to oblige us to divert vast resources to security — that was coming into the hands of smaller and smaller groups, gangs whose grievances, real or imaginary, it was not going to always be possible to satisfy. And how we were going to deal with that within the context of a democracy, and remain a democracy, I thought was one of the major challenges we faced and still face. This is tough; there are not easy answers here.”

On the consequences of our current programs and policies:

“It would be incorrect to say that we have savaged civil liberties since 9/11. But we have laid the foundations for a security state, for a very oppressive situation in all these measures. Now, it’s not extraordinary historically during times of war, during times of national power, for power to shift to the executive, for a nation to adopt emergency measures. But at the end of the emergency, then the other branches of government and the people call back [the] extraordinary authority and things are restored. But we face an open-ended contest. … there’s no point at which we can breathe a sigh of relief and say, ‘OK, emergency over, take it back.’ So what we’re putting in place now becomes a permanent part of the landscape, the baseline for yet further measures to be piled on top of that. We are dancing on the edge of tyranny and a major terrorist event, that sufficiently frightens the population, or a less benign government, has in place the institutions, the machinery, the legislation to move us into an entirely new domain. … I’m not making an argument against any particular program; I’m saying really what we do need, however, is a serious, national discussion, about where we are going with this.”

On fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden, Jenkins says that while he does not condone Snowden’s actions, they have opened the door for a national debate about legislation being passed that gives the executive branch extraordinary authority:

“Mr. Snowden’s fate is not the issue facing this country. The issue facing this country is: This is an opportunity to explore these broader issues, not just one set of NSA programs, but I mean, things that have remarkably not been debated because of a society that is either frightened or apathetic.

“And we’ve had a problem here. I mean, look, we have had, in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, legislation reinforcing a claim by the executive, that the President as Commander-in-Chief, has unlimited authority to detain, without habeas corpus, in military custody, terrorist suspects — suspects, not bad guys that we know of, but suspects. That was passed in legislation [and] prompted very little public debate.

“Part of the problem is, like legislation, it was buried in the National Defense Authorization Act, which is about 800 pages and in the middle of it we find these troublesome paragraphs. That merited debate. I think we have to have a discussion across the board…we really need to put pressure on our elected representatives. … We’re not asking if you are opposed to this program. What we’re really asking for is a broad, seriously informed debate on where we think we’re going in this society.”

On how the United States can retain its values and protect itself:

“It is my own belief, by the way, that the ultimate security of this country against terrorism is not going to be found in government computer files; it’s not going to be in concrete bollards that we put in front of buildings; it’s not going to be in walls we build along our frontier. It is rather going to be in the courage of our citizens, the commitment of our citizens to the values for which this country stands and which have taken us through far darker moments in our history than we confront today.”

EGYPT ON THE EDGE: Egypt's military has presented an ultimatum to the country's president. What happens next? He has a Wednesday deadline, and the military has leaked a plan that would suspend the constitution and the legislature.

What do you think will happen? How should that country resolve its fundamental problems?